


Sandstone

by Caelum_Blue



Series: Azula Week 2020 [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 600 Day Siege of Ba Sing Se, Ba Sing Se, Child Abuse, Denial of Feelings, Earth Kingdom Politics (Avatar), Episode: s02e13 The Drill, Episode: s02e20 The Crossroads of Destiny, Fire Nation Politics (Avatar), Fire Nation Royal Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Ozai's A+ Parenting, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25235272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caelum_Blue/pseuds/Caelum_Blue
Summary: Written for Azula Week 2020. Prompt - Success."Arealgeneral would stay and burn Ba Sing Se to the ground."Azula, the fall of Ba Sing Se, and everything that's led her up to this glorious day in Fire Nation history.
Relationships: Azula & Iroh (Avatar), Azula & Lu Ten, Azula & Ozai (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Azula Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818433
Comments: 38
Kudos: 139





	Sandstone

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY. SO.
> 
> You do NOT want to know what it took to get this written. It did NOT want to get written. I had to go after it with a big stick. Beat the tenses into submission. Drag out some more details. I spent the ENTIRE DAY on this. BUT IT'S STILL TECHNICALLY AZULA WEEK FOR THIRTY MINUTES SO HA. I DID IT!
> 
> There might be some grammar issues, because I'm a fool who decided to play with tenses and write like 9k words in two days. I don't care. I'm tired. :P
> 
> I've had this idea in my head for a long time. I think about it every time I watch The Drill. I'm glad Azula Week 2020 gave me reason to finally write it out. I wish it'd been more cooperative tho. I reserve the right to go back and edit this should I ever have the energy. I hope the title works. When I came up with this vague idea over a decade ago I wanted to call it Real Generals, but I think Sandstone fits better now. Meh. *shrugs*
> 
> Enjoy! I'm going to bed.

It had been a fit of desperation that drove her into Ba Sing Se.

Azula will never admit it. Fortunately, after everything she has accomplished in the city, no one will ever think to ask. As far as anyone else is concerned, she’s a genius. Despite her youth, despite this being her first foray into the war, her first time getting any practical experience on the battlefield, she’s proven herself an excellent strategist and a political mastermind. Where the rest of the Fire Nation had kept running headfirst into Ba Sing Se’s very literal walls, discouraged and resigned to waiting for the comet before they could break through, Princess Azula had stepped up, seen what had to be done, and bent the enemy to her will with all the assurance of Sozin’s line.

And she has accomplished what no one else in her family or nation or all of history has ever managed. She has taken Ba Sing Se.

The only people who might suspect she is anything less than brilliant are Mai and Ty Lee, but they always follow her lead and voice no questions they know better than to ask. 

* * *

Azula is the youngest royal to ever join the war effort.

The Fire Nation’s official age of conscription - and legal adulthood - is sixteen. There are still a few months until Azula’s fifteenth birthday. But Admiral Zhao’s attack on the Northern Water Tribe had been an unmitigated disaster, and the reports that the hawks had flown in in the aftermath were disturbing.

“Iroh is a traitor, and your brother Zuko is a failure,” Father had said as Azula knelt before the throne. “I have a task for you.”

Over half the Fire Navy has been wiped out. The remainder is in retreat, its officers scrambling to reestablish the chain of command. The Northern Water Tribe remains unconquered, and apparently able to commune with spirits capable of devastating attacks. The Avatar remains uncaptured and, in the few short months since his reappearance, has managed to spread dissent and rebellion throughout Fire Nation holdings - uprisings on the Earth continent’s western coast are causing coal shortages, and War Minister Qin reports that the Northern Air Temple and its innovative mechanist have broken free of Fire Nation control. And, worst of all, the Dragon of the West - former prince, retired general, and one of the most beloved-despite-disgrace figures in the Fire Nation’s political and military circles - had turned on his own men to protect the Water Tribe’s spirits.

The war effort is turning into a mess, and this year is the return of Sozin’s Comet, the year that is meant to be the Fire Nation’s ultimate victory. Azula is not yet fifteen.

Father had insisted she could handle it.

* * *

It should be an easy mission. Simple. Go to the colony her traitorous uncle and idiot brother have been spotted in, summon them home, catch them unawares and take them prisoner, get some practical experience in ordering troops around, and return to her place at Father’s side.

Zuko eats up the story she feeds him hook, line, and sinker. Uncle is harder to fool, and Azula finds she can’t be bothered to ply him with pleasantries, even if he is objectively the more dangerous of the two. It’s been three years since she’d last seen the old man, and he still irritates her after only a few words. She doesn’t like him. She doesn’t remember a time when she ever liked him. The sooner she has him locked away where she never has to look at him again, the better.

Father is secretly thrilled by Uncle’s treachery. He’s waited six years for Uncle to make a move toward the throne, and Uncle had made it clear he had no intentions to do so. He’s spent the past six years in retirement and the last three in exile, resting on his laurels as the Fire Nation’s most beloved son, and thus Father has had no excuse to do away with his greatest potential political rival. Now, he finally has reason, and not even Uncle’s staunchest supporters and former subordinates can object.

Azula doubts her uncle is planning to take back his throne. She’d consider it an insult if he even tried at this point. If he cared, he should have challenged Father years ago.

Even so, it will feel good to finally have him locked away. She’s looking forward to it.

Zuko meets her at her ship in the morning. Uncle follows after. Azula’s mission goes well, right up until the moment it doesn’t.

Father had personally chosen every guard who has accompanied her here, had made sure all of them have demonstrated their loyalty to  _ him _ and that none hold any disillusions that Uncle might be the rightful Fire Lord. Azula herself has reminded them all to do their duty, and she trusts that they will out of either loyalty or fear.

“You may have mixed feelings about attacking members of the royal family,” she’d told the Royal Guards during their briefing. Many of these men and women have been in the service of her family since before Azula’s birth. All of them can remember Uncle as Crown Prince. “I understand.” And she did. Traitor and failure though Uncle and Zuko may be, they are still of royal blood. It’s only natural that people would still respect that.

But everyone on this ship knows that Uncle and Zuko are to be taken prisoner. No one would dare to go against the Fire Lord’s orders.

Apparently, Azula has underestimated the ship’s captain.

“You heard the princess! Raise the anchors! We're taking the prisoners home!”

Azula stares down the gangplank at the man, enraged. He stares right back, frozen, and she thinks he is either very stupid or very brave. But she doesn’t have time to divine his political loyalties before Zuko has thrown him into the harbor.

One little word, and what should have been an easy mission accomplished in a manner of weeks becomes a months-long peacock-goose chase across the entire Earth continent.

* * *

Being away from home is...strange.

Azula has always been comfortable in the Fire Palace. She’s grown up there. She’s used to it. In her childhood the family had gone on trips to Ember Island, but otherwise much of Azula’s life has been spent in the palace, or at the very least in Caldera City. The surrounding landscape is familiar - the brim of the caldera, the sloping mountain sides made of basalt rock, the beaches, the sea.

Being on an entirely different continent is...different. Right down to the very earth itself - less basalt rock, more sedimentary. There’s so much  _ land _ here, more land than the Fire Nation might know what to do with. Endless mountain ranges and massive deserts and plains of grass that stretch on for as far as the eye can see. There’s no bordering ocean, no sea sparkling in the distance. Travel involves mounted beasts or wheeled carts or a tank train - no convenient ports or fast-sailing ships. In the Earth Kingdom, for the first time, Azula learns what it means to be landlocked. It’s a strange new life experience.

Stranger still is Father’s absence.

She still feels his presence. It’s a constant shadow at the back of her mind, judging her actions, waiting for her to fulfill the task given to her. It hovers over her shoulder with every report she writes home. 

But Father isn’t actually  _ here. _

She keeps expecting him to come around the corner of the military bases she visits, to be seated at the dining table of whatever governor is hosting her, to be waiting for her at whatever training grounds she happens to be heading to.

But he isn’t here.

Azula is not afraid of her father. She knows there is good  _ reason _ to fear him, and anyone who doesn’t is a fool. He’s a powerful Firebender, the greatest ruler in all three nations, and has the finest military in the world at his command. He’s a demanding man, quick to anger and absolutely ruthless when the universe doesn’t fall to its place at his feet. His standards are high, for some impossible to achieve, but Azula always delivers, and thus she has nothing to worry about. She knows his demands are meant to make her stronger, and if she is strong then she is useful and worthy of her place at her father’s side.

And if his expectations are hard to live up to, or if she sometimes wishes to be left to her own devices, well. No one will ever catch  _ her _ crying about it. She isn’t weak, and she knows better than to speak out against the will of her father and Fire Lord, the only person in the entire world who outranks her.

But  _ she’s _ the highest ranked person on this mission, and it’s just her and Mai and Ty Lee. Father isn’t here.

If there’s something relieving or freeing or  _ nice _ about it, Azula doesn’t bother to examine the feeling. It just is.

* * *

All trails lead to the Si Wong Desert, and all trails go cold in the endless sand.

Azula stares at the landscape, thinking. The sand dunes seem to stretch on forever, all the way to the horizon, like a beach without a sea. The landscape is completely unfamiliar, absolutely nothing like the Fire Nation.

So much of the Earth Kingdom’s geography is absolutely nothing like the Fire Nation. The landscape paintings she’s seen don’t do it justice. She’s used to breezy beaches and lush rainforests, but this place looks like it’s never seen rain at all.

It doesn’t matter how different it is. She doesn’t allow it to make her feel out of her depth. Of course the Earth Kingdom would be  _ different. _ It’s a strange, inferior place, and it will all belong to the Fire Nation eventually.

“Now what do we do, Azula?” Ty Lee asks. Mai says nothing.

Azula frowns at the desert. Uncle, Zuko, and the Avatar have all disappeared into it, and her team won’t be able to easily follow. Mongoose-dragons need water, and the tank train won’t do well in the sand. It’s too loose for the treads to gain any traction. On a beach it would be different, the sand made firm by the waves, but here it’s just soft and dry and shifts too easily.

She wonders if it gets harder farther down. If it turns to sandstone somewhere underneath.

“We’ll have to go around,” she decides. “The Avatar will be heading northeast. It only makes sense that he heads to Ba Sing Se. We have a military base there. It will give us a chance to regroup.”

“What about Zuko and your uncle?” Mai askes, giving Azula a sideways glance.

Azula raises an eyebrow. “Zuko’s still attempting to capture the Avatar.” The fool. It was almost sad, how he thinks there’s still hope of Father’s forgiveness. Father will never forgive Zuko for daring to be born. “I’m sure we’ll run into them again eventually.”

* * *

“Wow,” Ty Lee says.

“Huh,” says Mai.

Azula levels a look at the massive stone wall in the distance and says, “So that’s the wall of Ba Sing Se.”

It’s massive. She’d known it would be massive. It’s the tallest human-made structure in the world, as tall as a mountain, and even at a distance it towers over the landscape. It’s made of dense, sturdy sandstone, shored up by Earthbenders thousands of years ago in the reign of the First Earth Queen and carefully maintained in the millennia since.

Azula’s gaze is calculating as she takes it in. This is the wall that grants Ba Sing Se’s impenetrability, that has bested the Fire Nation’s every attempt to breach it. This is the wall that defied her grandfather and humbled her uncle.

This is the wall that killed her cousin.

And there’s every chance that the Avatar is on the other side.

* * *

Ba Sing Se was something of a myth, growing up.

Every child in the Fire Nation knows the name of the Earth Kingdom’s capital. It’s the ultimate target, meant to become the crown jewel of the Fire Nation’s colonies. The Impenetrable City that is destined to fall only to the greatest nation in the world.

When Azula was six, that destiny had been set in motion.

“You’re gonna win, right?” she’d asked her cousin while they sat in the garden, drinking jasmine tea. They’d been in the middle of reading  _ Love Amongst the Dragons, _ Lu Ten making a whole production of it with funny voices and everything, but now they’d stopped for a tea break.

Lu Ten had laughed. “Of course we are! It might be hard, but we’ll do it. The Fire Nation has the greatest military in the world.”

“You said the wall is really, really,  _ really _ big!”

“Nothing a few tons of blasting jelly can’t fix,” Lu Ten had said with a wink.

“How much is a ton?”

“A  _ lot,” _ Lu Ten had promised. “We’ll win, Azula. We know we will. Nothing can stop us.”

“Because Uncle had a vision?”

“Because my dad had a vision,” Lu Ten had nodded, pouring out more tea.

Uncle’s vision had been a matter of family legend for decades. He’d had it when he was just a boy, and he and Grandfather had been planning for Ba Sing Se’s downfall ever since. Signs from the spirits should not be taken lightly.

“How do you have a vision?” Azula had wondered, eagerly accepting the cup she was offered. Lu Ten made the  _ best _ tea.

Lu Ten had laughed again. “You can’t  _ make _ it happen, Zuli. It happens  _ to _ you. I’m sure if the spirits ever see fit to bless you with a vision, you’ll know.”

* * *

The Fire Nation’s Ba Sing Se-adjacent military base is a leftover from Uncle’s failed siege. The military still holds the Western Lake and the lands around its northern shore, and they hassle the few Earth Kingdom holdings that have stuck around outside the wall. There aren’t many - since the Siege, the Earth Kingdom has kept the majority of its troops up on the wall, watching the war from a safe distance like the cowards they are.

War Minister Qin greets Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee into the base with all the pomp and circumstance required of Azula’s station before inviting them to his tent for dinner.

“How goes your search for the traitor Iroh?” he asks conversationally, and Azula considers him. Minister Qin is one of Father’s men, appointed to his position after Father had taken the throne and forced Grandfather’s war minister into an early retirement. He’s done an admirable job carrying out Father’s will, and Azula agrees with many of his policies.

But she also knows better than to ever trust anyone in the Fire Court, where politicians rise up by dragging others down.

“I had a confrontation with him on the outskirts of the Si Wong Desert,” she tells him.

“Oh?” he raises an eyebrow. “Then why have you not delivered him back to the Fire Nation in chains?”

“Unfortunately, I was outnumbered. I couldn’t risk allowing the Avatar and his friends to capture me.”

Minister Qin looks honestly worried at that. “Iroh is working with the Avatar?”

“Perhaps,” Azula says, and allows herself a smile. “We’ll have to wait and see if he’s even still alive.” At the minister’s questioning look, she adds, “I shot him in the chest.”

He smiles, amused. “Forgive my boldness, but it will take more than that to kill a Dragon, Princess.”

* * *

The spring before Azula had turned nine, her cousin died. 

Mother had spent the first few days after the announcement crying in the palace’s temple. Zuko had become despondent. Father had seemed grim, but not upset.

Azula hadn’t felt anything at all. Not until she heard the next piece of news.

“By the way, Uncle’s coming home.”

Zuko looked surprised by the information, which meant he still hadn't figured out how to pay attention to palace news or gossip. He also looked confused. “Does that mean...we won the war?”

_ How _ did Zuko not understand these things?  _ “No, _ it means Uncle’s a quitter  _ and _ a loser,” she’d scowled, and she went to walk away, like she didn’t even care. Zuko would give her reason to circle back shortly, and she’d be happy to keep picking on him when he did.

Right on queue, “What are you talking about? Uncle’s  _ not _ a quitter.”

Azula had felt something flare in her heart. “Oh yes he is!” She swung around a pillar to face her brother again. “He found out his son died and he just fell apart. A  _ real _ general would stay and burn Ba Sing Se to the ground.” She leaned against the pillar, arms crossed. “Not lose the battle and come home  _ crying.” _ She knew  _ she _ certainly wouldn’t. She shot a smirk at Zuko.

He looked just as indignant as she thought he would. “How do you know what he should do? He’s probably just sad his only kid is gone.” Zuko deflated and looked away. “Forever.”

If Uncle really  _ did _ miss Lu Ten, Azula thought, he had a funny way of showing it.

* * *

There’s a letter waiting for her here at the base, Minister Qin tells her.

Azula has been sending reports home throughout her mission, and each one she’s written out has clarified her failures. She’s made them sound as good as she can, but there’s no hiding the fact that she has nothing to show in the way of progress.

In the colonies -  _ Uncle has proven himself inconveniently intelligent, and he and Zuko were able to escape, but I have a plan to track them down… _

In New Ozai -  _ Governor Ukano has made a mess of things, but King Bumi is still imprisoned and I am now making the Avatar’s capture a priority. To honor you, Father, I have decreed that the city be renamed…  _

In a Fire Nation base a few days’ travel from Gaoling -  _ I was able to track the Avatar for a while, and had a confrontation with both him and Zuko in the wilderness. I was able to land a hit on Uncle, but as I was outnumbered and at risk of capture I was forced to make a strategic retreat... _

In a Fire Nation outpost at the edge of the desert -  _ Both the Avatar and Zuko have disappeared into the Si Wong Desert, but as they are doubtlessly heading towards Ba Sing Se I plan on reaching our troops there before making my next move… _

She’s been moving around so much that Father hasn’t been able to send her a response, but now Minister Qin is handing her a letter, an amused look in his eyes.

The letter is in Father’s handwriting - a great honor, to receive writing from him  _ personally, _ not from one of his scribes. But that’s all the honor Azula is accorded in this missive.

_ \- I remind you that yours is a mission of utmost importance, not a tour of the Earth Kingdom - _

_ \- believed you able to easily best your brother, though perhaps my faith is misplaced - _

_ \- understand your zeal to capture the Avatar, as any loyal Fire citizen would attempt, but simply remember that Zuko has also proven himself incapable - _

_ \- and should your failure continue, I shall be forced to recall you home and find someone to replace you in this mission - _

And  _ that _ line of text is what drives a spike of fear into Azula’s heart.

* * *

There are no official records or statements on what happened to Mother. There’s not even much gossip - no one dares to speak of it. Azula hadn’t thought much of it until the Summer Solstice celebration one year before Sozin’s Comet was due to return.

Azula had been enjoying the party with Mai and Ty Lee, unaware that in a few short months they will all be split up - Mai to soon-to-be-conquered Omashu, Ty Lee to the circus, and Azula left behind in the palace. She’d been regaling them with tales of Zuko’s latest pathetic letter updates from his banishment, when Ty Lee had suddenly asked, very quietly, “Is your father talking with the daimyo of Shiroboshi?”

Azula had turned and seen her father was, indeed, speaking with Daimyo Ayako. More importantly, he was  _ looking _ at Daimyo Ayako’s granddaughter, who was smiling brightly and nodding enthusiastically under her grandmother’s watchful eyes. Father was smiling back. It was the same smile he used when Azula would show off her firebending mastery, or when one of his generals suggested a particularly vicious plan.

Azula’s eyes had narrowed. Ty Lee had bitten her lip for a moment before she made herself stop. It had been Mai who finally said something.

“Gross.”

“Mai,” Azula had snapped, “that is your Fire Lord.”

“And she’s like half his age and only ten years older than you,” Mai had shrugged. “She’s the right age to be your sister, not your stepmother.”

Azula had huffed. 

“Azula?” Ty Lee had asked quietly. She’d sounded worried. She’d had good reason to be. The Kohimori and Shiroboshi clans hadn’t been on friendly terms for a few generations, to say the least.

Azula had huffed again. “It’s none of my business what my father chooses to amuse himself with,” she’d said, and that had been that.

A few weeks later, when Azula had spent days drilling herself to frustration over lightning, Father had made a casual remark over dinner. “How would you feel about having younger siblings, Azula?”

It’d been a warning and a reminder and possibly even a threat. Azula feels about younger siblings exactly how Father intends her to - replaceable.

* * *

It’s been six years since the Fire Nation last attempted to conquer Ba Sing Se. Uncle had been so close, had actually broken through - but then the city had bested him, and the siege had fallen apart in his subsequent abandonment. Now Minister Qin is eager to try his own hand at it, certain he’ll succeed where a prince of Sozin’s line had failed. Azula disdains his hubris, but she has to admit that his drill is a technological wonder.

Whether it will actually succeed remains to be seen.

“You’ve tested it?” she asks, staring up at the metal behemoth. The idea of simply boring a hole through Ba Sing Se’s wall is intriguing. Uncle had used the Fire Nation’s entire blasting jelly supply to get through, and it had taken years for the national stockpile to recover.

“Through  _ mountains,” _ Minister Qin says proudly. “It will carve a tunnel straight through Ba Sing Se’s walls and lead us to victory.”

Sandstone is a dense rock, resistant to erosion, but it likely won’t be resistant to the constant grind of a massive drill. Azula glances at Minister Qin. “I look forward to seeing it in action.”

He startles, only a little, but immediately smooths his expression. “Of course. It would only be  _ right _ to have a member of the royal family in attendance for such a historic occasion. And seeing as you have no priorities currently...well, if you could spare your time, I would be honored by your presence, Princess.”

Azula ignores the jab and turns back to the drill. She has no leads on either the Avatar or Uncle, though something tells her the Avatar won’t be able to stay away if the Earth Kingdom capital is in trouble.

And she wants to see Ba Sing Se’s walls come down.

* * *

After Lu Ten had died, and Grandfather had died, and Mother had disappeared, and Father had been crowned, Azula had finally received her last letter from her cousin. It’d been delayed, or perhaps forgotten, the box left somewhere until some servant had noticed and brought it to her room. Azula had opened the box to find her cousin’s final gift to her - a chunk of sandstone from Ba Sing Se’s Outer Wall.

Lu Ten had known better than to send her some stupid doll.

Azula had sat on her bed for a long time that night after Father’s coronation, the rock held in her hands, and she’d allowed herself this one brief moment with her old life. She’d run her fingers over the sandstone, inspecting its heft and density, and imagined mile-high walls made of such stuff.

She’d imagined them falling to her.

She’d wondered if that was a vision, or if it was something her mind had just made up.

And then she’d decided it didn’t matter either way.

* * *

“This drill is a feat of scientific ingenuity and raw destructive power. Once it tunnels through the wall, our troops will storm their city. The Earth kingdom will finally fall, and you can claim Ba Sing Se in the name of your father. Nothing can stop us.”

Azula remembers Lu Ten saying the same thing about the Siege.

Minister Qin is so very proud of his drill, one of the final innovations he’d managed to squeeze from the Northern Air Temple before its revolt. Azula wonders if perhaps he shouldn’t be so trusting of a machine designed by rebels.

“Hm, what about those muscley guys down there?” Ty Lee asks, peering through the periscope.

Minister Qin snorts. “Please, the drill's metal shell is impervious to any earthbending attack.”

Azula doesn’t appreciate the yelp he startles out of Ty Lee when he smacks the periscope. She also doesn’t appreciate that he’s so blinded by his faith in his technological terror that he refuses to even consider elite Earthbenders a threat. Azula hasn’t had many run-ins with Earthbenders, but she knows better than to underestimate anyone who can make the very ground swallow you whole.

“Oh, I'm sure it is, War Minister Qin. But just to be on the safe side… Mai and Ty Lee, take the Earthbenders out!”

“Finally, something to  _ do,” _ Mai mutters, following an enthusiastic Ty Lee towards the nearest exit hatch.

“Sending nonbenders off to fight Earthbenders, Princess?” Minister Qin asks.

Azula stands and joins him to look out the window, just in time to see the Earthbenders smack a tank aside with a wave of sandstone. “I assure you, War Minister, I’m taking this  _ very _ seriously.” More seriously than he is, anyway. She doesn’t think it’s a risk to send her nonbender friends up against elite benders. She knows  _ exactly _ what Mai and Ty Lee are capable of.

Another spike of sandstone is sent up to brace against the side of the drill, but it crumbles easily against the metal. And then Azula’s friends are sliding down the iron plating and launching into action. Mai appears mildly amused as she starts throwing knives. Ty Lee takes down the majority of the Earthbenders herself, cheerfully vicious, and Azula is reminded that Ty Lee also has a cousin who fought in the Siege.

Kenta had come home though. Mostly in one piece, even. Legs could be replaced.

Lu Ten had been buried deep enough that the Fire Nation hadn’t been able to retrieve the body. Azula doesn’t know if Uncle even tried.

* * *

After disappearing for months, Uncle had come home, bowed before Father’s throne, and proceeded to do absolutely nothing.

Well, that’s wrong. He’d spent a lot of time drinking tea, and playing pai sho, and being completely unthreatening.

He’d also started spending time with Zuko. It had been odd, because Uncle had never had much time for either Zuko or Azula before - he’d  _ liked _ them, of course, in that distant, impersonal way that one likes family who they rarely see - but he’d spent so much time on campaign, and Zuko and Azula were not his children.

Now he had no children, except Zuko and Azula.

Zuko had been glad for the attention. Azula hadn’t. Uncle would invite her to tea, and she’d tell him she hated it. He would offer to read  _ Love Amongst the Dragons, _ and she’d tell him it was stupid. He’d offered to assist with her firebending training, and she’d told him she didn’t need his help, that he was a terrible teacher, and that she wanted nothing to do with him.

He’d stopped trying to spend time with her, and all his attention had gone to Zuko. Azula had been perfectly fine with that. Zuko and Uncle were the most useless members of her family, and they deserved each other. 

* * *

“Hey, look at that dust cloud. It’s so...poofy! Poof!”

Azula is indeed looking at the dust cloud. The dust cloud that has very suddenly sprung up from the Earth Army’s trenches, and is very conveniently extending from those trenches to the side of the drill. The pulverized sandstone floats through the air, and it’s impossible to make out whatever it must be hiding on the ground.

She tilts her head at Minister Qin, curious. He’s the one who has the most experience with Ba Sing Se’s troops, after all.

“Don’t worry, Princess,” he says, unfazed. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

She looks away, brows furrowed, already considering contingency plans. Ba Sing Se is too great to handle casually. Ba Sing Se was the Fire Nation’s first true  _ defeat _ in this war. Ba Sing Se is not a city that will yield easily, a fact it made all too clear six years ago. If Minister Qin cannot take his own goals seriously, then Azula will.

He makes an announcement over the speaker system when the drill begins boring into the Outer Wall. “Congratulations crew, the drill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se. Start the countdown to victory!” For a moment, he glances at her, but Azula keeps her expression perfectly blank. Unreadable.

Ba Sing Se must fall, but Azula doubts it will give in to anyone less than the Fire Nation’s very best.

She’s right, of course, and when the reports of sabotage and inside attacks come through the speaker tubes, she doesn’t have time to revel in Minister Qin’s humiliation. 

“Let’s go, ladies.”

* * *

It’s the Avatar, because of course it is. She knew he’d come to Ba Sing Se. 

She fights him on top of the drill, and she hasn’t been slacking in her training since leaving home, but - he’s different than he was last time, when she’d found him after her long chase. He isn’t sleep deprived, and he’s fighting with earth as well as air and water now, three elements to her one, and the way he  _ moves -  _ ducks and dodges and strange circling movements she can’t get a handle on. It’s not like sparring with fellow Firebenders at all.

When the drill breaks through to the other side of the wall and Azula becomes the second Fire royal to breach Ba Sing Se in six years, she doesn’t have time to savor it. The Avatar is unconscious, and if she’s quick, she can end this  _ now. _

But the Avatar is a formidable opponent, and Azula is sweating when she claws her way back up to the top of the drill, just in time to see the Airbender go running vertically down Ba Sing Se’s wall towards a spike of rock he’s wedged into the drill’s metal shell.

She aims. She fires. She misses.

She’s tired of failing.

She finds Ty Lee drenched in slurry. Mai opens a hatch, apathetic, and announces, “We lost.”

Azula doesn’t know if she’s pleased to be proven right, or if she’s angry at the Fire Nation’s defeat.

Minister Qin is evacuating, calling a retreat. Azula takes a moment to survey the wreckage. The drill and surrounding ground are covered in slurry, thick mud and chunks of rock littering the ground. It’s sedimentary. Sandstone. Rough and tan and more familiar to Azula’s eyes and hands than she’ll ever admit.

* * *

Minister Qin doesn’t have a pleasant time after the failure of his drill. Casualties were minimal, but the Avatar and his friends have completely totalled what had been a significant investment. The loss of funds, resources,  _ metal… _ They could have used that metal for new navy ships to replace those lost at the North Pole. Now it lies in twisted, mud-flooded ruins behind Earth Kingdom lines.

Every time a hawk flies in from the west, War Minister Qin stiffens like a man awaiting the summons to his own execution.

Azula takes great delight in writing a report for her father. She makes sure to mention Minister Qin’s hubris, his inability to rethink plans and form contingencies.

Even so, she doesn’t look forward to Father’s response. Minister Qin has written reports of his own, and  _ she _ has failed to beat the Avatar. Again.

A few mornings after the drill’s defeat, Azula watches the sun rise behind the wall looming over the eastern horizon. The Avatar has disappeared behind the safety of that wall, Uncle and Zuko have yet to make an appearance, and Father is waiting for some sort of progress.

The sandstone is hard under Azula’s feet. She has to do  _ something. _

* * *

She and her friends take the mongoose-dragons and go on a patrol, searching for something - anything - that might prove useful in their mission. They find pretty pink flowers that Ty Lee coos over while Mai rolls her eyes. They find the remains of Fire Nation encampments from the Siege, collapsed tent poles and rusted cooking pots and tattered fabric embedded in the soil. They find a massive green serpent screaming at nothing out in the lake, and Azula briefly recalls reading about the animal in a letter - in several letters, actually, all of them detailing just how annoying the creature was when one was trying to sleep, and  _ I think this is where the author of  _ Love Amongst the Dragons  _ got the idea of the shrieking eels from, Zuli. Wouldn’t that be funny? I really want to turn this thing into sushi _ before she pushes the memory away.

They find the Avatar’s bison, guarded by a group of warrior girls who are all-too-easily defeated. Perhaps to lesser soldiers they would be formidable - but Azula is a firebending prodigy, Mai is from a clan renowned for their aim, and Ty Lee’s chi-blocking skills are an art known only by her family.

The bison escapes. The warriors don’t. Azula returns to the Fire Nation’s military base, captives in tow.

“What’s all this?” Minister Qin asks, one eyebrow raised at the chi-blocked prisoners tied to the backs of the mongoose-dragons.

“Allies of the Avatar, now taken out of commission,” Azula answers smugly.

“Ah,” says Minister Qin. “I’m sure your father will be  _ very _ pleased to hear of this success.” Because, he doesn’t have to remind her, she has no other successes to report.

Ah, well. Two can play at this game. “It’s the most success this military base has to offer so far.”

Minister Qin stiffens. Azula brushes past him with Mai and Ty Lee, leaving the prisoners behind to be processed, and Minister Qin to consider whether he really wants to play this game with her.

* * *

Azula likes to play games. Preferably the kind where she always wins. Sometimes she isn’t sure what’s more fun - getting what she wants, or manipulating people into giving it to her.

She’d played a lot of games like that with Zuko. After his banishment, she’d turned to Mai and Ty Lee.

When she’d found her friends again in the colonies, she’d reminded them what the rules were. She’d set fire to Ty Lee’s safety net and had the circus animals released in the chaos to stampede over her tender heart. She’d made Mai handle her baby brother’s hostage exchange, and then all but ordered her to abandon the child to the Avatar and his insurgents.

Father likes to play games, too. Here’s one Azula absolutely hates: No one knows who Father’s heir is.

Zuko had always assumed it was him, because Zuko is a fool. Birth order determining the line of ascension is a relatively new development in the Fire Nation’s history. Uncle had only been Grandfather’s heir because Grandfather favored him, and Lu Ten had only been Uncle’s heir because Uncle had no other children. But Grandfather had been the youngest of all Fire Lord Sozin’s children and had fought his way to the crown, and Father had swiped Uncle’s throne right out from under him. In centuries past, Fire Princes and Princesses would compete with each other for the Fire Lord’s favor, until one was named heir.

Azula has Father’s favor. Azula  _ knows _ he would prefer her over Zuko.

But neither Zuko nor Azula have the title of Crown Prince or Crown Princess.

* * *

Azula had smiled when Zuko was burned and laughed when he was banished, and she has plenty to say about the whole debacle should anyone dare to ask, but she actually doesn’t know how she feels about any of it.

Zuko had it coming. Anyone with any sense could see that Father actively disliked him. And it was almost a relief when he was gone, out of Azula’s way, off on an impossible errand designed to keep him away forever.

Except then it was just Azula and Father.

One might think that removing the competition would make things easier. But Zuko had never been competition.

Training had become harder. Azula had risen to the challenge because she is a prodigy and an excellent Firebender. But Father’s standards had become higher and higher since Zuko’s banishment, and without Zuko around for comparison, Azula only had herself to compete with. Herself and Father.

One day, she knows, she’ll surpass him. She never dares to say as much out loud.

* * *

The Avatar is hidden behind Ba Sing Se’s walls where Azula cannot reach him. Zuko and Uncle are nowhere to be found since they’d disappeared into the Si Wong Desert.

Azula has had two objectives on this mission - one given to her by Father, and one she assigned to herself. She hasn’t accomplished either.

But she does have the uniforms of the enemy, patterned after a long-dead Avatar the Earth Kingdom still holds in high regard, and that should be enough to get her into the city.

“Princess, this is madness,” Minister Qin protests when Azula presents her plan. “You  _ cannot _ enter the enemy’s stronghold on a whim! We know little about these Kyoshi Warriors, we don’t know - ”

“We know they’ve never been in Ba Sing Se,” Azula says. A brief interrogation had given them that much. The warriors had said it defiantly - they’d never set foot in the city, and the Fire Nation wouldn’t be able to learn any information about it from  _ them. _

Ironically, the fact that the Kyoshi Warriors had never been there is now one of the strongest points of Azula’s plan. Having no chance of running into someone who knows the real Kyoshi Warriors will be a major advantage.

“Give me a week,” Azula says, confident. “If I don’t capture the Avatar, I’ll at least be able to gather intel.”

“Princess,  _ please _ allow me to send  _ actual, trained spies _ into the city to do that instead.”

Azula snorts. “Your spies haven’t managed to find out anything so far.”

Minister Qin looks panicked. He has good reason to be. Should Azula enter Ba Sing Se and never come out again, it will be on  _ his _ head. “Princess, we cannot risk you!”

“I am  _ going _ to see the inside of Ba Sing Se, War Minister,” Azula tells him as she turns to leave his office. “Your approval is unrequired.”

* * *

Back home in the Fire Palace, hidden under a loose floorboard beneath her bed, there’s a box of letters and a chunk of rock and a dog-eared copy of  _ Love Amongst the Dragons. _

Azula hasn’t read the letters in years. Not since Father had caught Zuko reading his. Father had snatched the parchment from Zuko’s hands, given a cursory glance over the contents, sneered at Lu Ten’s name signed at the bottom, and promptly burned it.

“This is the past,” he’d said, as the paper had turned to ash in his fingers. Zuko had watched numbly, every attempt at protest cut off by Father’s sharp glance. “You have no time to dwell on it. Perhaps if you kept your mind in the present, your skills would be as good as your sister’s.”

Zuko had blinked back tears. Azula had watched from the doorway to Zuko’s room, smirking, because that was the only proper reaction to Zuko being miserable.

Father had pointed imperiously at the stack of letters Zuko had been going through. “You know what to do.”

“But - ”

_ “Zuko.” _

Zuko had picked up the first letter.

When the carpet was covered in ashes, and Father had left with a smug smile, and Zuko had snapped at Azula to  _ go away, _ she went. She went back to her own room, to her writing desk, and she’d gathered up every single letter Lu Ten had ever sent her and the chunk of sandstone that was his final gift and the book he’d left behind that she’d stolen from his room one month into the Siege. She’d tucked the letters into a box, taken it and the rock and the book, and crawled under her bed. One of the floorboards down there was loose, though she’d never bothered to hide anything under it until that moment.

She never forgets that the items are there, but she hardly ever looks at them. It’s the past, as Father had said all those years ago, and she has no need for sentimentality.

The night before Father had shipped her out to the colonies, however, Azula had crawled back under her bed and retrieved the piece of sandstone. She’d spent the night holding it in her hands, turning it over and over. Contemplating.

She’d put it away again before dawn, setting it back in its hiding place before any servants or guards would be the wiser.

She hadn’t looked inside the box of letters or opened the book since she’d first hidden them.

* * *

“What are you even trying to accomplish?” War Minister Qin demands when Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee step out in full uniform and makeup.

Azula goes still for just a moment, because she can’t let him know - she doesn’t know. She thinks...maybe she can capture the Avatar. Maybe she can...manage something. Something that will make Father proud, that will justify her time away from home, that will...be an accomplishment, after her continuing failures.

She smiles at War Minister Qin and says, “More than  _ you _ have.”

He goes pale. The wreckage of his drill is still visible from the base. The Earth Kingdom has set a wall up around it, claiming the wreck for itself.

The sandstone walls of Ba Sing Se are strong, and Azula had known it would take more than fancy mechanics to bring them down. Those walls have killed a member of the royal family. The only way they might fall is if a descendant of Agni takes them down herself.

But first she has to get in to figure out  _ how. _

* * *

Azula enters Ba Sing Se and finds it’s exactly as the Fire Nation’s propagandists have described it. Earth King Kuei is an idiot, too obsessed with his pet and too inexperienced to understand basic security procedures. Within mere minutes of meeting her, he’s told her all about his current political situation  _ and _ his military’s plan to take advantage of the upcoming eclipse. Then he’s so intrigued by these Kyoshi Warriors they’re impersonating that he invites them for casual conversation over tea. Mai hates it, but Ty Lee has taken a liking to the bear, which means the Earth King trusts her immediately, and Azula is able to tease out even more information from the man’s oblivious babbling.

Less than twelve hours in Ba Sing Se, and Azula has already obtained information on the city’s political scene and classified military plans. How Minister Qin has never managed it is a mystery.

Perhaps it’s the political upheaval that’s making it so easy. She  _ is _ visiting at an opportune moment, after all, and she intends to take all the advantages it affords her.

They’re invited to stay in the palace as honored guests. Servants escort them to a guest house on the grounds, and Azula glances around curiously as they make their way there. The architecture is all sandstone, likely built straight up out of the ground below, and the gardens are extensive and filled with late spring flowers. The Earth Palace is just as opulent and luxurious as the Fire Palace, and even if all the green is rather off-putting, it’s no wonder that the Fire Nation wants to plunder Ba Sing Se for its riches. This is the prize they’ve been trying to claim for a century.

And Azula knows how to take it.

She only set out on this mission to infiltrate. She hadn’t had a more detailed plan than that. But after a single afternoon with the Earth King, Azula can tell that this city is ripe for the picking.

“We have been presented with an extraordinary opportunity, girls,” she tells Mai and Ty Lee when they remove their disguises in the safety of the guest house.

“Mai finally gets to wear makeup that’s not totally depressing?”

“Ha ha.”

“I’m talking about conquering the  _ whole _ Earth Kingdom,” Azula says, and she has Mai and Ty Lee’s immediate attention. She stares out the window at the darkened palace grounds. “For a hundred years the Fire Nation has hammered away at Ba Sing Se from the outside. But now  _ we’re _ on the inside, and we can take it by ourselves.”

Mai is silent, but Ty Lee says, “Gosh, you’re so confident. I really admire that about you.”

Loyal and obedient as ever. No protests, no claims of impossibility, just complete faith in Azula’s leadership. She smiles. “From the inside we're in the perfect position to organize a coup and overthrow the Earth King. The key is the Dai Li.” She turns to face her friends. “Whoever controls the Dai Li, controls Ba Sing Se.”

* * *

The Earth Court is so corrupt that Azula has a disgraced former minister in her pocket within forty-eight hours of arrival. Long Feng has done an admirable job turning this city into something easily controlled, but he plays himself right into Azula’s hand. His men are swayed to her side without resistance, and Azula almost laughs. She wonders, briefly, if perhaps the Dai Li’s immediate cooperation is  _ too _ easy - but no. Fire has always been superior, and the Dai Li, for all their elemental inferiority, are intelligent. If the rest of the Earth Kingdom could see the truth as quickly as they did, there never even would have been a war.

She’s only been in the city for a few days, and she’s already gathered a mass of critical intel, obtained valuable allies, and strategized a coup that will put her solidly in control of the city. The Avatar will be dealt with when he inevitably shows up again. Azula isn’t sure how things could get much better - and then a familiar Water Tribe peasant comes running into the throne room, yelling about Zuko.

* * *

Uncle is a fool, and it’s easy to lure him and Zuko to the palace with tea. They suspect nothing until it is too late - sloppy, really. Just because Uncle couldn’t break into this city doesn’t mean he should assume no one else can.

Uncle is also a master Firebender and a slippery fish to catch.

Zuko is stupid enough to issue Azula a challenge she doesn’t dignify by accepting. Anyone can demand an Agni Kai, but no one needs to accept a challenge issued by the honorless. And she doesn’t need to fight him when she can just have her Earthbenders capture him.

She has Zuko tossed in with the Waterbender while she tries to figure out what to do with him.

* * *

“Now comes the part where I double-cross you.”

To anyone else, Long Feng would be a formidable opponent. Azula can grant him that. She’s heard quite a bit about the man - from the Earth King, from the Dai Li, even from the whispers of nobles gossiping about his sudden loss of power. He’s spent decades ruling this city from the shadows, maintaining his iron grip with help from his Dai Li agents and the upper class who supported him. The Earth Kingdom believes in the Mandate of Heaven for their monarchs as much as the Fire Nation does for their lords, but Long Feng has spent the last twenty years keeping his king as nothing more than a puppet.

Perhaps he doesn’t believe in the will of the spirits. Azula is happy to enlighten him.

“I can see your whole history in your eyes,” she says, staring down from the dais. “You were born with nothing, so you had to struggle, and connive, and claw your way to power.”

Even as the words leave her lips, she’s thinking of the similarities to someone else she knows.

“But true power, the divine right to rule, is something you’re  _ born _ with.”

_ She _ had been born with it. She knows this for a fact. Born lucky, not lucky to be born. 

“The fact is, they don’t know which one of us is going to be sitting on that throne, and which one is going to be bowing down. But I know. And you know.”

He’s sweating. Azula sits down.

“Well?”

He closes his eyes and bows before the throne. “You’ve beaten me at my own game.”

Azula smiles down at him - this low-born son of peasants, who’d fooled his way into a level of society that had only accepted him when it’d had no other choice. “Don’t flatter yourself. You were never even a player.”

She has the Dai Li drag their former leader to the dungeons, and she considers her other prisoner. 

* * *

Destiny is at hand, and Azula stands at a crossroads.

She has the Dai Li. She has Ba Sing Se’s king. She has the city at her fingertips.

And she has to make it stick.

The Avatar is not an opponent to be taken lightly. Azula has lost to him twice. She has no intentions of losing again. Not when she’s so close to fulfilling her father’s demands and more.

She needs more firepower. She needs someone who has experience fighting the Avatar and his friends.

She needs someone who can take the fall if this all goes wrong.

Despite his shortcomings, despite the fact that Zuko is destined to never be her match...he might not be completely worthless. If someone like Long Feng, of common blood and poor beginnings, could become the most powerful man in the Earth Kingdom...well.

It might be interesting to give Zuko the chance he’s so desperate for.

And it might be useful to have him on her side.

She gathers her Dai Li, and she goes to offer her brother a choice. They get there just in time.

“It’s time for you to choose. It’s time for you to choose  _ good.” _

Oh, isn’t that just like Uncle.

Azula only has to flick a finger, and the Dai Li are in action. Uncle is pinned in place by crystals before either he or Zuko know what’s happening. The Dai Li flank Azula as she enters the cavern, rock gloves at the ready. These are men who survived the Siege, and they’re taking no chances with the Dragon of the West.

“I expected this kind of treachery from Uncle,” she says, “but Zuko,  _ Prince Zuko. _ You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a traitor, are you?”

“Release him immediately!”

“It’s not too late for you, Zuko,” she says. “You can still redeem yourself.”

“The kind of redemption she offers is not for you.”

Azula turns a glare on her least favorite family member. “Why don’t you let  _ him _ decide, Uncle?” She looks back to her brother, schooling her face into something sympathetic. “I need you, Zuko. I’ve plotted every move of this day, this glorious day in Fire Nation history, and the only way we win is together.”

Uncle looks like he wants to say something. Uncle had his chance six years ago.

Azula keeps talking, keeps Zuko’s attention on her. “At the end of this day, you will have your honor back.” It’s the farthest thing from the mission she originally set out to accomplish, but she can make it happen. Father will grant her anything she desires after she hands him Ba Sing Se on a platter. If she decides she wants her brother, then it will happen. “You will have Father’s love.” For whatever it was worth. “You will have everything you want.”

Zuko is silent.

“Zuko,” Uncle speaks up, “I am begging you, look into your heart and see what it is that you truly want.”

How ridiculously trite. What Azula truly wants is a cup of perfectly-brewed jasmine tea.

Zuko actually looks  _ conflicted. _

“You are free to choose,” Azula says. It’s more mercy than she’d offered him at the start of this journey. But when she first set out, all Azula had been after was Zuko and Uncle. Now she has Ba Sing Se and the Avatar at stake. It’s worth the risk that Zuko might not join her.

She walks past Uncle’s crystal prison, and she doesn’t even look at him as she goes by.

* * *

For a long second in a crystal-crusted cavern, Azula thinks perhaps she’s overestimated her brother.

And then he throws fire at the Avatar, and Azula smiles as all the pieces she’s carefully arranged fall into place.

She didn’t go into this fight planning to kill the Avatar - capture is preferable, the Fire Nation doesn’t want to have to start searching all over  _ again _ \- but she isn’t left with much choice when the glowing starts and even the Dai Li start backing away. She sees her chance, and she takes the shot, and she doesn’t regret it for a second.

Uncle shows up, too late to save anyone he might care about, again. He only fights long enough for the Waterbender to escape with the Avatar’s corpse, and then he surrenders. The Dai Li encase him in solid crystal this time, and he won’t even look at Zuko.

Azula smiles.

* * *

When all is said and done, Ba Sing Se is in the Fire Nation’s control.

There are some mishaps. They don’t have the Avatar’s body. There’s a cell in the dungeon that’s had it’s door ripped off, and the Earth King and the Avatar’s friends have escaped. 

But she has the city in her grip. She has her Uncle in chains. She has plans for the Dai Li to take down the walls of Ba Sing Se. She has orders being sent to War Minister Qin’s military base to put together a proper occupation force - and a promise to publicly praise him for his swift and decisive action, because Azula can play nice. She has a report on its way to Father, declaring her victory.

She has her brother back in her life.

“We’ve done it, Zuko,” she says, seated upon the Badgermole Throne. “It’s taken a hundred years, but the Fire Nation has conquered Ba Sing Se.”

Zuko doesn’t look triumphant. “I betrayed Uncle.”

_ “No,” _ Azula says, “he betrayed you.”

Zuko looks unconvinced.

“Zuko,” Azula says, standing, “when you return home, Father will welcome you as a war hero.”

“But I don’t have the Avatar. What if Father doesn’t restore my honor?”

The Avatar is dead, and Ba Sing Se is won. How Zuko doesn’t understand how these things work, Azula has no idea. She places a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “He doesn’t need to, Zuko. Today, you restored your  _ own _ honor.”

* * *

Azula gives orders that she, Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee are to be set up in the royal apartments. It’s their due as Ba Sing Se’s conquerors, after all, and it’s not as though the missing Earth King will be needing them any time soon. The Dai Li snap at confused servants, Ty Lee asks if anyone can find her a pink silk nightgown, Mai makes a few remarks about the decor while trying not to look like she wants to talk to Zuko, and Zuko remains silent.

Azula leaves them to it. There’s one more thing she wants to do tonight, before she retires for the evening.

The Dai Li escort her to the dungeons. The soles of her shoes tap against the sandstone steps. They lead her down a row of metal cells until they reach one in the furthest corner of the prison, as far from sunlight as it’s possible to get.

They open the door, and Azula steps inside alone. The cell is dimly lit with glowing crystals, and Azula stares down at her uncle in the weak green light.

He stares right back at her from his seat upon the floor, unperturbed.

She hates how unaffected he is by her presence. She’s won, in every way that’s ever mattered - the city, the war,  _ Zuko _ \- and he doesn’t even react.

But she has something she’s wanted to say to him for a very long time, and now she finally can.

“I’ve done more to avenge him than you ever did.”

The words hang in the air between them for a long moment. Azula stares down, imperious. Uncle stares up, unreadable.

And then he closes his eyes. “You have,” he admits quietly, and for the briefest moment his expression flickers with grief. “It’s exactly what he would have wanted.”

_ Then why didn’t you do it for him? _ Azula wonders, but she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t care. All that matters is that she’s succeeded where he failed.

She turns and leaves the cell.

When she returns to her new quarters, Zuko is brewing a pot of tea - apparently at the behest of Mai and Ty Lee. He looks like he’d rather be doing anything else.

“Azula!” Ty Lee beams. “Here, have a cup! It’s really good!”

Azula has a sip. Jasmine. “Not bad, Zuzu,” she says. Zuko looks haunted.

Ty Lee is chattering a mile a minute, catching Zuko up on everything he’s missed back home. Mai is interjecting here and there. Zuko remains silent.

Azula takes her teacup and goes out to the balcony. There’s a good view of the palace grounds from here, and she surveys all the little lights twinkling along the walkways in the night. In the distance, she can make out the outline of the palace walls. Beyond that would be the Upper Ring, and then the Middle Ring, and the Lower Ring. And then there would be the Agrarian Zone, the massive stretch of farmland that had previously been the farthest the Fire Nation had ever gotten beyond the Outer Wall, up until the earth had been flipped on its head and taken a Fire Nation prince with it.

Azula taps her fingers against the balcony’s sandstone railing, gazes out at the city that is now  _ hers, _ and has another sip of her drink. Zuko must have picked up  _ something _ from Uncle during their years in exile - the tea is almost perfect.

But almost isn’t good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Annnnnnnnnnnnd there we have it, I hope that all made sense because I really can't read through it again at this point, ahaha. Kudos and comments are so very appreciated! Thank you for reading. <3 You can find me on tumblr at caelum-in-the-avatarverse.
> 
> Oh - and for those of you who follow my Gilded Green AU. Yes. There are implications. ;) BUT I DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW IT'S ALL GONNA PLAY OUT YET SO LIKE. *SHRUGS*
> 
> And that's all I have to say for now. If I think of anything else I'll edit this tomorrow. Goooooooodnight everybody.
> 
> ETA: RIGHT OKAY now that I've gotten some actual sleep...
> 
> *throws back a shot of water* Right so I definitely went on some kind of 14-hour writing bender to get this thing done yesterday. Now I’m experiencing the writer’s equivalent of a hangover, but the reviews I’ve gotten so far have all assured me that this thing is indeed as coherent as 11:30pm Caelum thought it was last night, so that’s a relief. Don't do tenses, kids.
> 
> So basically one of my goals in life is to enlighten people to my interpretation of The Drill. Azula's behavior in that episode has an in interesting edge to it - she's alert and determined and dangerous as ever, but some of her expressions are just...odd. Unreadable. I started wondering about it the second or third time I watched ATLA, and then I realized - she's trying to conquer the same city that killed her cousin. I'd be experiencing a lot of mixed emotions too. The Drill gets pretty interesting when you view it through the lens of Azula Misses Lu Ten (Whether She'll Admit It Or Not).
> 
> Also it very recently hit me just how desperate Azula must have been to go into Ba Sing Se. Undercover or not, she didn't seem to have much of a plan originally - capture the Avatar, maybe, but she had no idea a coup would be so possible, or that Zuko and Iroh were there. ATLA is from the Gaang and Zuko's POV, so we're so used to Azula being this dangerous, relentless, unstoppable force that our heroes only just manage to escape every time. But that's the thing - from Azula's POV, every time, her targets escape. She hardly has any true wins up until Ba Sing Se. For someone who's used to coming out on top - for someone who has to report to _Ozai_ and maintain his favor - that's rough. 
> 
> Anyway, I'm still exhausted and I have to get to work, so that's all for now. If you're reading this during daylight, congratulations on your good life decisions. If you'd like to leave kudos or a comment to get me through my work day I would really appreciate it! And remember to drink water and get some sleep and maybe step away from the computer and go for a walk, lol. <3


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